Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

So I was tooling around on my usual reef borad haunt, and glancing at my tank. Something dawned on me. Coral placement. We all know about different species liking more/less light & flow, but after browsing through some members reefs pics, I noticed a lot of condradictory things based on the "expert" opions. Of course a lot of this has to do with the tank itself (the catch all reply instead of "I don't know").

So lets take this tank for example:

http://nano-reef.com/forums/showthread. ... adid=12152

my questions urged me to post on his thread. As you can see from my questions there that a lot of tank pics look gorgoeus, but ow old are the corals in there? You can get a 9 for $99 deal slap the corals in and take pics a day or 2 later and get great looking shots.

From his pics you can see most of the LPS are on the sand bed and doing well if not better.

My blasstomussa colony was returned to Mike and he said it rebounded, the frag off the colony in my tank, has grown 5 new heads in a little less than 2 months. It sits in a pretty high flow area in full light (well 12") on the sand. 8" away is my candy cane. The polyps don't expand out but haven't retracted, slimed, etc... The frogspawn I have 7" from the light in a high flow area. The first week or so it ballooned out swaying this way and that. Now it opens (2 heads) to the size of golf balls for about 3-4 hours in the middle of the day, and then slowly tightens back till lights off.

I'm not worried about the blasto. he spawn though. Do you think it has just adjusted to the conditions I gave it? Do you think the "LPS need moderate flow and moderate light" has a real effect on it? Has it gotten too the point where it gets 90% of it's need from the higher light therefore it doesn't need to expand to catch as much food? I have never seen sweepers on it. I've read that in a high flow situation is where they stick out the sweepers most.

I've read that natuarrly LPS come from reef bottoms, where they sit on sand and get dimmer light (again a relitive term...dim compared to your MHs or my PCs?)

So to those here who have spawns, candys, blastos, foxes, etc...where have you had the most success in placement?

I'm not aiming this at softies or SPS, just the LPSs.

I think some coral movement is in need, but as I have a small tank a lot need to move to fit one new thing.

I think you have the frogspawn in too much direct current. All of my LPS's are near if not on the bottom. I think that LPS are less light needy than all SPS and probably all softies due to the fact that they usually recieve more direct food from fish food if not directly fed. I feed all my LPS either a mixture of food that I made or scallops. I don't know if it really does them any good, but it sure doesn't hurt. None of my LPS are in direct current either.

HTH,
Scott

yeah, almost all my lps are close to the bottom of the tank and love it there

so heres a shiity tank layout.

pink=candy
green= blasto
purple=spawn

the current slips around the front of the bow. The blasto seems to like it. Been there for some 2 months. The candy is somewht protected frm the flow due to LR in it's direct path. The spawn is geting both up and down flow in it's spot.

So the question remains...has the spawn adapted or is the fact that it is in an area of high light sustaining it nutritional needs? or is it the fact that it the flow inhibits it from expanding? Does it need to expand to sustain itself? Is expansion there for capturing free floating food sources or does it expand to capture light?

Scott and Mike, have you seen sweepers on your spwans?

oh yeah, they sweep long